What is Gross Profit Margin?

Gross margin ratio is a profitability ratio that measures how profitable a company can sell its inventory. It only makes sense that higher ratios are more favorable. Higher ratios mean the company is selling their inventory at a higher profit percentage.

Gross margin ratio is often confused with the profit margin ratio, but the two ratios are completely different.

Gross margin ratio only considers the cost of goods sold in its calculation because it measures the profitability of selling inventory. Profit margin ratio (See: What is Net Profit Margin?) on the other hand considers other expenses.

Gross margin ratio is a profitability ratio that compares the gross margin of a business to the net sales.

Pros

When compared against industry, can spot if company is under or over pricing its products

Cons

Does not give accurate judgement of the profitability of a company

A company with a high gross margin ratios mean that the company will have more money to pay operating expenses like salaries, utilities, and rent. Since this ratio measures the profits from selling inventory, it also measures the percentage of sales that can be used to help fund other parts of the business.

High ratios can typically be achieved by two ways. One way is to buy inventory very cheap. If retailers can get a big purchase discount when they buy their inventory from the manufacturer or wholesaler, their gross margin will be higher because their costs are down.

The second way retailers can achieve a high ratio is by marking their goods up higher. This obviously has to be done competitively otherwise goods will be too expensive and customers will shop elsewhere.